Earlier this year, the Grocery Gazette reported that the UK was set to be a world-leading developer of lab-grown meat. In the recent past, Guardian climate hysteric George Monbiot claimed lab-grown food “will soon destroy farming – and save the planet”. Alas, such boosterism is being challenged by hard facts. Lab-grown meat is up to 25 times worse for the environment since it needs ‘pharmaceutical-grade’ production to make it fit for human consumption. In particular, there is a need to remove endotoxin from the cultured mix, a substance that in concentrations as low as one billionth of a gram per millilitrie can reduce human IVF pregnancy success rate by up to four fold.
These are the startling conclusions of ground-breaking work recently published by a group of chemists and food scientists from the University of California. It turns out that ‘pharma to food’ production is a significant technological challenge. The major problem with lab meat is that it uses growth organisms that have to be highly purified to help animal cells multiply. Compared with environmental savings on land, water and greenhouses gases, the whole bio-process is noted to be “orders of magnitude” higher than rearing the actual animal.
“Our findings suggest that cultured meat is not inherently better for the environment than conventional beef. It’s not a panacea,” said co-author Edward Spang, an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology. The study found that even across scenarios using lower pharma standards, efficient beef production outperforms cultured meat within a range from four to 25 times. This suggests that investment to advance more ‘climate-friendly’ beef production may yield greater reductions in emissions.
The route to New Zero is littered with improbable technologies that promise much – and give endless opportunities for virtue signalling – but deliver little. While many countries press ahead with plans to destroy conventional animal husbandry, the options for new ways of actually feeding populations look thin on the ground. To be fair to Monbiot, he has picked up on the problems of lab meat, noting in a recent blog post that “the more I’ve read about cultured meat and fish, and the more I’ve come to appreciate the phenomenal complexities involved… the more I doubt this vision will come to pass”. Always the worrier, Monbiot asks, “How can mass starvation best be averted”? Not removing the 337.18 million tonnes of global meat production in favour of flaky factory solutions might be a start.
The California study could throw a major stick into the spokes of the lab-grown meat bandwagon, which to date has had a largely uncritical mainstream media ride. Grocery Gazette’s cheer-leading report noted that the sector was predicted to “rapidly increase its market share within the food industry”. Research was quoted suggesting cell cultured meat was expected to make up almost quarter of global meat consumption by 2035.
The authors in California acknowledge that lab-grown meat ventures have attracted around $2 billion of investment to date. Early reports on feasibility were bullish with some predicting a 60-70% displacement of beef by 2030-2040. But of late, sentiment has waned with more conservative estimates noting a 0.5% share of meat products by 2030. As noted, the huge problem in producing lab meat is the presence of endotoxin which is said have a variety of side effects including harm to in vitro fertilisation. In pharmaceutical labs, animal cell culture is traditional done with endotoxin having been removed. There are many ways to remove the unwanted substance, but the use of these refinement methods “contributes significantly to the economic and environmental costs associated with pharmaceutical products since they are both energy and resource intensive”.
The study also highlights concerns about past scientific consideration of lab-grown meat. There is said to be “high levels of uncertainty in their results and the lack of accounting for endotoxin removal”. It is further noted that despite researchers “clearly reporting high levels of uncertainty”, the results were often cited as clear evidence for the sustainability of lab-grown meat.
So a much-touted green Frankenstein food solution – arguably to a problem only promoted in alarmist circles – looks to be biting the dust, sweeping away a billion or two of credulous capital in the process. As the authors note, investing in scaling this technology “before solving key issues like developing an environmentally friendly method for endotoxin removal… would be counter to the environmental goals which this sector has espoused”.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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This article appeared last week then was deleted. Is this the final draft then?
But, as many articles have pointed out, if we have nuclear power as a ‘constant backup’ we will not need ‘to rely on renewable sources’ (if by that we mean wind and solar). So we can save money and the environment by scrapping the wind and solar farms and just building nuclear capacity.
Let’s get on with it if we’re going to.
The problem with this ample logic is that it reduces this government’s ability to fleece us via our energy bills. Some work arounds will be needed in order to continue our impoverishment which is the sole purpose of “green energy.”
I wonder if the requirements for electricity on tap 24 / 7 in their coming wholly digital world are starting to percolate through the mini brains of the executive?
Imagine the outrage if DWP were unable to make the millions of pounds of weekly benefit payments to those of the claimant community retired to such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and the rest. The fall out would be enough to bring down a government.
Might cause massive economic hardship in Pakistan.
Pass me the world’s smallest violin.
I thought that in the late 1960s!
While we have Arts and Humanities graduates in charge, especially PPE and History graduates, there’s little hope. They don’t know how to use a Project Plan.
”AI and nuclear energy are a marriage made in heaven it seems.” or possibly a Faustian pact of darkness?
Perhaps we could have the AI run the nuclear power plant to supply its own power? Then of course it would not be possible for puny humans to interfere or turn it off… I feel a SciFi film plot coming on.
Catastrophic climate change… very visible climate crisis… Turn your lights off for an hour every night to save power… Everyone’s got to be forced to have heat pumps and electric cars and power outages when the wind isn’t blowing…
But we need AI so much, it’s so essential to human life, that we can move heaven and earth to supply the power in any way possible and it’s not contributing to environmental issues AT ALL.
Now go away and turn your heating down or all your grandchildren will die.
This is absolutely right and I’m amazed it isn’t talked about more by people who oppose climate policies.
If climate change is such a threat to humanity and high energy consumption is the main driver of climate change (it’s not but just for the sake of argument) then why is every last little thing in our lives being electronified?
Here are a few petty but irritating (to me) examples:
Take any appliance. Where before you turned a knob, now you have to scroll through a menus on a screen and digitally give the command.
Where before you raised an lowered the car boot by yourself, why do new supposedly more environmentally friendly cars do it for you electrically at the push of a button?
Where before you switched lights on and off in your house physically with the push of a button, why are they pushing on us techy stuff that allows you to do it from your phone or from a control panel somewhere?
And on and on. It’s like every little nook and cranny of our lives is going to involve some sort of digital screen from which we issue commands and which consumes more electricity. Instead of, you know, pressing buttons which use muscle energy.
Good points. Maybe some of the elites like AI because they think it will help them control the world, or they like it because they think it’s cool and don’t care whether it’s “eco friendly” or not because it won’t be available to the masses. I also get the impression that eco loons think the internet is powered by unicorn farts or that electricity is somehow “clean” – and of course we’re told that electricity generated by certain means is much better for the planet than others. But it’s not consistent with “consume less”.
I do think lots of people think electricity must be clean and good because of the push for electric cars to “save the environment”.
It just comes out of the wall! 15 minute cities but then you get everything delivered from Amazon, whose servers require immense power, and you get all your entertainment from the Internet (powered by unicorn farts).
Absolutely agree, I say this to people ALL THE TIME and they largely look at me like I’m mad. We recently had to buy a new washing machine and it was impossible to get one without a stupid big screen that lights up with your options every time you try to use it. Why? A bog standard knob works totally fine. Toothbrushes are another example. Manual works fine if you’re thorough. Zoom meetings for everything. And as for the constant push from mobile companies to sign up to their plans to get the latest and greatest new mobile phone every single year…!! Don’t get me started.
I am hanging on to my 16 year old car as long as possible because almost any upgrade will involve a great big screen through which I will now have to do almost everything I want to do, including turning the radio on… sigh.
To be fair, this is private money selecting (and investing) in a solution to suit their demand. It’s not a state energy choice. The fact they have chosen an established and proven energy source is the interesting bit, not some intermittent ‘unreliables’, speaks volumes in itself…
A fair point, but why is no one else complaining about it if we’re in such dire straits?
The BBC haven’t told them.
No money in telling the truth perhaps? Peopl want to ‘believe’ and ‘hope’ it’ll all be fine? Engineering and physics based facts are out of fashion at present…
Nuclear is the answer then, maybe until the next one goes pop.
I mean nuclear power station accidents are of course quite rare –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents
For the life of me I cannot understand why Thorium isn’t used for fuel. Far less nasty by products – for example plutonium isn’t one.
Maybe that’s why.
It’s because it takes a long time to develop a new nuclear design, and build it. And lots of of money to finance it. Then there’s the skilling up the workforce, enhancing their Engineering skills, building up the Supply Chain for the materials, and the support of the politicians and the public who vote them in.
And when the BBC and other Environmental Pressure Groups continually campaign against it, any farsighted project eventually get canned, and sold off to competitors.
And, you don’t really want it, do you?
You just like the idea of cheap power.
Well you’ve got it: solar, and windfarms.
Didn’t you know, it’s so cheap, it’s almost free.
The only reason we had the first wave of nuclear stations was literally to make plutonium… the commercial power was a nice side effect!
Got to hand it to the French, they put their money where their mouth was investing properly in nuclear long term, and now they reap the long-term rewards
Food for thought about AI –
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2019/04/20/our-entire-ai-revolution-is-built-on-a-correlation-house-of-cards/
So, AI is no different to Arts and Humanities graduates: it appears to act intelligently, but has no understanding, and cannot explain its decision in simple terms.
I was thinking about the NET Zero policies in particular.
To think we had places like Winfrith opened in the 60’s to research reactor design…
Could have been world leaders in clean, safe, cheap exportable energy. Thousands of jobs, energy security for our homes and industries, AI giants flocking to the UK for their power needs…
Ah well at least we’ve got our windmills in the sea and a place for Chris Packham to do Springwatch from.
Well, he isn’t going to be doing much Spring Watch when his ilk have stamped Bomb Farms all over the countryside he so claims to revere.
Always makes me smile when he broadcasts from Arne bird reserve as literally in the background is the largest onshore oil field in Western Europe. Think the irony is lost on him
Miliband and the Net Zero zealots spurn nuclear power precisely because it works well and would make their cult of so-called renewables redundant.
It should be obvious to anyone with a functioning brain that net zero fossil fuels by 2050 coupled with antipathy to nuclear power and “reliance” on short-lifespan, toxically non-recyclable, expensive to construct and integrate, heavily resource-depleting, inefficient, unreliable, weather-dependent renewables will lead to economic collapse and mass privation.
And there’s no money in nuclear for a person with the suspiciously same surname as millipede, whereas a load of the cash he plans to spaff on batteries in a Field will be going straight into the pocket of a certain resident of New York.
You are taking the proverbial surely?
A f*cking nuclear power plant just to power computerised call centers? And generate illiterate nonsense on fb and linked in?
It’ll make money!
So what’s your problem?
It is all doomed to fail because it is predicated on many false premises and it won’t take long to wither but they will make our lives hell in the meantime. On the bright side it has been 12960 years since the last time things got this messed up and so very soon we should reach rock bottom and then the slow climb out of the kali yuga but at least it will be in the right direction and it might start as early as next March. All of this agenda is being massively disinvested by the people in the know.
And here we have the problem to the solution. If all the tech companies are protecting their supply, when the power goes, their outputs continue but we will not be able to access the output because we won’t have the power to operate our computers and WiFi.
Interesting that they want to close couple this much though – almost like they expect the grid to become less reliable in the future…
Animal farm anyone
Labour and the Left say Nuclear power is bad, until they say its good.
Had we commissioned something like 20 nuclear power plants at the turn of the century, they would all be online now producing reliable “clean” energy, and we could maybe justify the shutting down of coal power stations, and the older gas power stations.
But the other “renewable” sources – No!
Not at scale. Not now, not ever!